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A Succinct Guide to 2.08
This is a guide for the online multiplayer version. That is a difficult game to start playing. The techniques are getting increasingly advanced, and thus new players are getting increasingly outplayed. I describe here in short how the good players play. It is also a good idea to observe one of them, to see exactly how they carry it out. I will try to describe the usual techniques, but there will be exceptions to some of the points. Smallpox vs largepox There are 2 possible strategies, smallpox and largepox. Smallpox is about building as many small cities as possible to get a production advantage and then attack your opponents. Largepox is about building fewer large cities to get a trade advantage, and win by being ahead in science. Rapture is the key. Smallpox used to be widely used, but in todays environment is has no chance in free for all-games. You can maybe kill one opponent, but then the rest will be too far ahead. Its still useful in duels or team games. The beginning I use this term for the period until you research republic. The beginning is very important. The small advantages you can get here, will accumulate for the rest of the game. Some tips for the beginning: *Almost always go straight for republic. *Always build the first cities on squares that give 2 food. That is no forests, deserts and definitely not mountains. *Use your workers to build roads, in order to get your cities out faster *It gives good science if you build your cities close to the capital and near whales *Disband your explorers to get settlers out faster *Only build settlers. (In special cases, you can build one library in the capital though.) Rapture Rapture is a very important aspect of freeciv. Rapture occurs under Republic or Democracy if the city has more happy people than content people, and it has no unhappy people. If this is fulfilled, and the city has enough food, it grows by 1 citizen per turn. That means that in 5 turns, a size 3 city will become a size 8 city. You can imagine how powerful this is. You cannot rapture with cities smaller than size 3. Here is how to rapture from size 3 to 8: *Build harbours and temples *Discover Mysticism *Set the CMA to "very happy" *Set luxury rate to 40%. (Or whatever it takes to get all cities to rapture) To rapture from 8 to 12 and beyond, you can make marketplaces, banks and trade routes. Largepox The largepox strategy relies on the ocean squares. You don't need to build any workers. The ocean squares give good trade, which you use to invent miniaturization as soon as possible. Once you have that, you will have good production as well. It is important that you build your economy before you start to research. That way, the research will be much faster. The order should be more or less like this: *Build 8-10 coastal cities, spaced out on the island. Place them so that you use so many ocean squares as possible. *Try to get your cities to size 3 as fast as possible. You need size 3 to rapture. *After republic invent seafaring, mysticism and currency. *Build / buy harbours and temples in all cities. *Once all coastal cities are size 3, start the rapture *Buy marketplaces in your cities *When your cities are size 8, set the tax rate to max. *Build one or more triremes, and explore around your island. This is in order to enable the cities to use all the ocean squares in your city radius. *Now, in no particular order, you should make trade routes, buy banks, buy aquaducts, and rapture to size 12. *At size 12, make the last trade routes, so that all cities have 4, if possible. *If you fear an attack, you can build some chariots for defence. Or try to get gunpowder quickly and get some musketeers. *Now you should buy libraries and universities. Once you have those set science to max *If you have good space around the city, you can now invent sanitation, build sewer systems in your cities, and rapture again. *You can also try to get Statue of liberty, Darwins voyage or Hoover dam. *Apart from these thing you should go straight for miniaturization. *After you have offshores, there are many things you can. You can invent amphibous warfare and conquer people with marines. You can go for flight and use fighters. Etc. Eventually you will have all technology, and its just a question of conquering your opponents. (We usually play with some customized settings. We play with "experimental trade" routes, which means that internal trade routes give the same as foreign trade routes. We also use a setting that forbids technology trade with other players. If you play without these settings, then its very important that you find a good ally, and make trade routes with him instead. In addition we play without Isaac Newtons College, and without SETI program. Those wonders are overpowered. If you play in a game where you can build those, you should.) Smallpox The strategy is to build as many cities as can possibly fit on your island. This should give you a small advantage in getting republic earlier, and a large advantage in production. After republic you set science to max, and try to get magnetism as fast as possible. You should not build any city improvements, except for maybe a barracks or two. The order should be like this: *Build settlers like a maniac *When you get republic, research map making and explore around your island. If you find some small islands, settle on them. *Invent some war tech such as the wheel or warrior code. If you can find an opponent, attack him. *If you dont find anything, invent seafaring and take a chance with your triremes *Set tech goal to magnetism, and hope you get it soon. *When you get magnetism, change all city productions to frigates. load them with phalanxes and conquer your opponent. *Set tax up for some turns, so that you will not be too easy to bribe. Wonders you can build: Maybe Magellan or the great library. But its normally better to build more units. A note on the history of this technique The largepox technique has changed freeciv a lot. In the beginning, people had only invented gunpowder around 0 AD. Now sometimes players have computers at 0AD. The first player to use rapture effectively, as opposed to smallpox was the player Sun Tsu. Wiggin learned from him and refined the technique. He invented the technique of not doing any research until all cities had all the improvements they needed, and buying everything, including caravans. He was the first player to invent miniaturization in BC. The players Yaro and Jp learned from Wiggin and made some improvements on his technique. Among them the very early marine attack.